The hypocrisy of Mao as a benevolent, jolly matriarch is exposed in a group of gargantuan sculptures
Miss Mao No.2 (2006). Here the “lovely” Mao, still with enlarged tits, is hissing at his audience, sticking the tongue out and in effect revealing his hideously gapped teeth. This Mao has a big mole just below his lips, suggestive of a seasoned hooker. His eyes become engorged and his nose, too, has been elongated. Does it ring any Pinocchio bell?
The acrimony of lies, deceit, childishness, greed and corruption, political deviousness under the guise of a loving mother is discursively written all over the Gao’s sculptures, whiles the duplicates of this not-so-lovely Mao in gold, red, white, silver and black, strangely reminiscent of devilish elves, magnify the evil of Maoist Communism and socio-political schizophrenia long endured by the Chinese nation.
The regression of Mao the sculpture ends in the grotesque Miss Mao in Confinement (2007), that of a fully feminized body of Mao in gold busily suckling his thumb, masturbating and ejaculating a red dragon. The Gao brothers materialize his anti-reproductive, self-serving act of shameful autoeroticism - do note that China still holds a rather traditional view towards sexuality and sex is hardly publically discussed - to upstage the highly treasured bodily representation of Mao one encounters in the Chinese history book, in the media and everywhere.